


Tip of the Tongue

by RavioliChan



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavioliChan/pseuds/RavioliChan
Summary: Reki woke up with no recollection about the incident— not just the incident, but a big chunk of memories that could have completed a scrapbook. When he woke up, he didn't recognize Langa whose eyes were bloodshot either from lack of sleep or crying. The redhead shifted from his slumber then slowly woke up to a hospital room, his friend sleeping by his arm.Reki doesn't remember Langa. Or the adrenaline he used to feel when he skated. Or the feeling of betrayal and self-depreciation. He only remembers the blue-haired boy who kept waiting for him in his hospital room every day but not the story of what went on between them.
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 124





	Tip of the Tongue

Reki woke up with no recollection about the incident— not just the incident, but a big chunk of memories that could have completed a scrapbook. When he woke up, he didn't recognize Langa whose eyes were bloodshot either from lack of sleep or crying. The redhead shifts from his slumber then slowly wakes up to a hospital room, his friend sleeping by his arm.

The morphine hits and he’s dazed for a while. He doesn’t go frantic, doesn’t panic. Everything is light and he feels like staring into the white ceiling for a long while. It doesn’t immediately register in his brain the steady beeping of the heart monitor or the bandage on his head. He snapped awake when the guy with hair like snow exclaimed.

“Reki!” Langa was already glassy-eyed at the sight of his best friend waking up. He clutches the redhead’s arm and can’t help but give off a smile that strains his face. “You… you’re finally awake.”

“Pretty…” Reiki mutters out of his stupor, the drugs injected to his bloodstream making everything hazy. “Who are you?”

“Reki, you— what do you mean? I’m your friend,” the word friend tasted bitter in Langa’s mouth. After their conflict against each other it almost felt like saying a curse. “Stop joking around, geez.”

“Oh,” Reki’s downcast eyes were empty and clueless. “Are we close?”

“I don’t know,” Langa doesn’t know if he’s allowed to say that they were close. He’s been calling the redhead his best friend but he doesn’t know if Reki thinks the same.

“You don’t know?” Reki raises an eyebrow at him and rubs his eyes to get rid of his blurry vision.

“Yeah I… I’m going to call your mom,” Langa gulps as he stands up abruptly and exits the room. His knees were getting weak and he then only noticed that his breath was shallow.

What the fuck? What in the ever-loving fuck? What does he mean by that? The first thing Reki asked him after waking up from a two-week coma was who Langa is? He has been swallowing down his guilt every second of every day, some sort of survivor guilt bullshit that his mom even wants him to get therapy for. Reki’s state did not make things better. He feels like puking and ending up on a hospital bed of his own.

Mrs. Kyan was back from buying tamarind’s from the nearby stall by the hospital. She always liked to eat it and peel some for Langa, the scent gave him comfort somehow. Comfort while watching his then coma-ridden friend.

“Auntie, Reki is—” Langa’s scared expression already gave much to say. The moment Reki’s mom saw him panicked, she herself went inside the redhead’s room.

“Reki? Oh, baby,” she immediately goes red trying to contain her hysterics. She rushes to her son and gives him a tight hug. Reki doesn’t quite know yet why his mom was panicking.

“Mom? Why am I in the hospital?”

“Honey, you don’t remember?”

He doesn’t remember anything, goddamit. Langa’s throat felt like something was blocking it, like he forgot how to breathe. He didn’t get to warn Auntie about Reki’s mind going haywire.

“I don’t remember…”

“Something about a skating accident, honey,” Reki’s mom said.

“Skating? I— huh?” Reki shook his head in confusion. Langa’s feet were begging to step out of the room, get to the nearest doctor there and ask if they gave his best friend too much morphine. “I skate?”

“Oh god, the doctor warned us about this,” Reki’s mom gasped. “Langa, can you please get the doctor.”

Langa only nods, he’s afraid his voice will crack from the lump in his throat. He feels suffocated inside the room anyway. The last thing he saw before heading out was the empty and hollow expression on Reki’s face.

* * *

Reki doesn’t remember much anymore. That was probably an understatement. Reki doesn’t remember most things and what’s worse is sometimes even new memories were hard to form.

The doctor told him that the trauma from his head injury gave him retrograde and aterograde amnesia. They both seem like made-up words to his muddled mind at that time, everything was murky while the doctor was explaining. She said it means Reki lost his memories prior to the incident and will be having a hard time retaining the new ones.

He’ll have to stay for a few more weeks, maybe even months. Some patients go through mood swings and mental instability on their way to recovery, but Reki doesn’t think he’ll come back to the way he was before— whatever he was before.

Apparently, he saved the blue-haired guy who was watching him ever since his coma started. When Langa introduced himself, Reki hated the hopeful gleam in his eyes. Did he really expect his name to ring a bell inside Reki’s mind? How special was this blue-haired guy to his past self?

He doesn’t want Langa to be there. He was always there to watch and assist Reki almost all the time. He would be feeling bad right now if only he remembered why he should be guilty for forgetting about his friendship with Langa. The guy looks at him like any minute, Reki would snap back to normal and remember what they went through.

“So you chased me down to the intersection after we fought? And then I saved your ass?” Reki said, not wanting to sound enraged by the idea. “You were going so fast on your skateboard that I had to push you back and get ran over by a truck? Huh, that’s so lame.”

Langa doesn’t say anything about it, he only continues peeling the tamarinds for Reki. The redhead takes them whole into his mouth and chews nonchalantly. He turns on the TV so he won’t have to hear the blue-haired boy apologize for the upteenth time that week.

Reki wanted to know how he felt before the incident. What was between him and Langa that he decided to save the guy instead? Would his past self do it for anyone or just Langa? He doesn’t want to know the answer.

“I don’t see the point in you coming here anyway,” Reki muttered. “Didn’t you say I almost cut you off? Was I the kind of person to forgive you if my memory is still intact right now?”

Langa flinches from those words. He felt like he was stabbed by the sharpness of it coming from Reki’s lips.

Reki looks away from him, instead his eyes are on the open window. The curtains flowing inside the room from the cold wind. Reki wondered what he used to do when he went out with the weather like what it was at that moment. Did he really like skating before? He felt like a puzzle with missing pieces.

“Was I the forgiving type, Langa? I can’t seem to remember,” Reki asked, nothing more than a whisper. “I don’t know how I was before.”

Langa was at a loss for words. Before the incident, Reki didn’t seem to be close to forgiving him. Yes, he did go out to support Langa that night when he had his beef with Joe but he doesn’t know why the redhead wanted to get out of S in such a rush.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Reki said. Langa’s head snapped up as quickly as those words were uttered. “Maybe I knew what I was doing when I decided to save you that day. I wouldn’t know about it now though.”

Reki almost grimaced at the look of hope on Langa’s face. He didn’t want to dwell on how he sacrificed so much for a guy who he doesn’t even remember now.

* * *

He doesn’t know if it was the side effect that the doctor told him about, the doctor said it was normal to be depressed and random outbursts when recovering from the head injury. But Reki wished that it wasn’t in front of his “friends”.

The boy in the hoodie with cat-ears and a burly man with a mohawk kept getting on his face, asking him if Reki remembered their names. A green-haired guy and another one with pink hair just stood by the corner of the room.

The noise was grating, he understood that they were worried and anxious about Reki remembering them but he was feeling overwhelmed. Like he was drowning in fear of disappointing them when he doesn’t remember their names. His knuckles almost turned white as he gripped the hospital sheets in anger.

“Stop it!” immediately, the two stopped hogging him. “I’m not some fucking dog you guys could just order around. Stop asking me to say your names. I don’t fucking remember any of you.”

He remembers this at least. Reki’s anger was always wet. He didn’t like the fact that the screeching and the outburst came with the tears. He looked so weak and vulnerable. Was he really a skater before? Did he deal with the frustration the same as he’s dealing with the people in the room right now?

“R-Reki, we’re sorry. You don’t have to—”

“Get out,” he manages to whimper out. In his desperation not to be seen in that state, he goes under the bed sheet and mopes like a child. “Please.”

It was probably one of the two in the corner of his room who told everyone else to give Reki some space. He hears the set of footsteps as they leave the room and just wish they could be faster so he doesn’t have to stifle the sobs.

Everyone else was gone, except he could still feel someone’s presence in the room. He peeks out of the covers to see a tuft of blue hair almost as light as snow.

“Why aren’t you leaving yet?”

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“It doesn’t matter, okay?” Reki grits out. “You can stay here for hours, days, to no end. I still won’t remember you so stop expecting so much from me.”

Shit. By the end, his words almost came out as sobs. He sounded like a child who was throwing a tantrum. Shitshitshit. So immature. The words were just running out of his lips, like they weren’t even making any sense anymore but Reki just kept throwing them out by instinct.

“You always look at me like— like I’d snap awake one day and everything goes back to normal,” Reki’s throat hurts from the crying and the explaining. “I know you want to ease your guilt. And the only way you’ll get that is when I remember everything again.”

He saw Langa ball his fists. His eyes going from left to right, the blue-haired boy for the first time didn’t look at Langa in the eyes.

“But things aren’t going to work out like that. The doctor said it’s almost impossible for me to remember,” Reki heaved a sigh. “So please just leave for now. The time we spent together— whatever we had before the incident isn’t going to come back. The least you could do is stop expecting it to be like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

He leaves after saying those words and nothing more. Reki feels like the wind is knocked out of him when Langa finally steps out. He continues to cry out until he feels empty inside. His face was cold after the wind kisses his cheeks where tears ran down it just a while ago.

He wasn’t ever going to be complete again. And he hates how he has to deal with it. So many blank spaces that’ll never be filled. So many memories that escaped from his clutches. He felt like every second, he was losing his sense of self. But those guys were expecting the opposite to happen.

He barely gets any sleep that night. Reki thinks about how the person that he was today was really a disappointment to those friends of his.

He clutches his chest and after a long time, finally feels something familiar.

Why was he familiar with the feeling of people being disappointed in him?


End file.
